spirit walk

beads of condensation pool and run down my glass

leaving lacy tracks in old varnish

protected for years

with old-lady doilies

I hated your studied carefulness

and in the shining brilliance of youth

judged you harshly

living behind drawn blinds

a shadowy figure

scurrying around the kitchen

the boundaries of your world

between those four walls

house dresses, hose,

and sturdy black shoes tied tight

comprised a uniform varied only on club days

good jewelry wrapped and hidden in drawers

in your house of dead secrets

the air sucked out

careful even in senility

waiting three hours a day

for a milkman’s delivery

years after the dairy closed

I wanted to know about you

how wound tight like a clock

you skimmed the surface

lukewarm like the pale coffee you drank

at the appointed hours

never breaking into raucous laughter

or slipping into shuttered sighs

I wanted to know

why you lived in a gray plane

controlled and modulated

and utterly joyless

I still have your things

a citrine ring whose sparkles

fascinated me as a child

vases labeled in your spidery hand

bequeathed before your hair turned white

a treasured recipe collection

blotched with uncharacteristic spills

I know many of them by heart

and sometimes feel your hand over mine

as I cream the butter-sugar mixture

of your chocolate-chip cookies

                               --Katherine McLeod Searle